XI

off. That's the Finnegan's Wake conclusion to my post on the 14th. I tried to think of something funny to put up on here to honor the title, but there was too much pressure. I considered everything from pictures of my genitalia to pictures of other people's genitalia. In hindsight, that probably would have been better to just put up both of those. Sort of like a compare and contrast thing.

I find myself working another blue-collar, manual labor, landscaping-cum-menial janitorial work job this summer, which brings up several points. The first being that I'm never going to work a job like that ever again. The inherent positive of no mental exercise is easily outweighed by the inherent negative of absolutely no mental exercise. If I have to argue about the achievements of Phil Jackson, how much rain sucks, the benefits of sex sans condom, or how expensive it costs to go to Darien Lake ever again, I'm probably going to drown myself. This may sound like a jaded, whiny perspective on work, and "I should be lucky I have a job", but fuck that, this shit is like Chinese water torture. My second point is the way the job was sold to me, and the way the job actually is. Sold to me: Working at a boat harbor, dealing with boats, helping out customers, and most importantly, hanging out with girls in skimpy clothing. Job actually is: mowing lawns. Where is the fucking disconnect there? Nothing that the job actually is was promised beforehand. This is another constant in summer temp work: It's never as good as it seems. Buuuuuuuut, I'm working outside and getting paid for it, so fuuuuuuuuuuck it.

On to point two. This past Memorial Day weekend, I met a man named Ed. I say 'met' in the loosest way possible, as it was more of an exposure. The story starts on the beach at a campfire, as so many fantastic stories do in my small, pale, social circle. It was very late (around 3) and the booze had taken the manic, energetic turn that it so often does around that time. The night was passing erratically, and the fire was dying down in the same fashion. Suddenly, to the west, a blazing salvo against the dying of the light: a man approaching with a girl under each arm. Then something happens, I'm assuming conversation, and then I find myself (with a dear, dear friend as my plus one) following one of the girls back to their beach house to 'take some shots'. We get to this very nice house, literally like two houses away from where we were before, and follow the girl inside. In the light of the kitchen, two things become clear to me: this girl has the dead-eyed look of a sex trade worker, and I'm completely barefoot. No matter. We follow the girl to the front driveway, where a limo is parked. To add to the 'sex trade' worker vibe, this limo is not a nice new model, but rather one of those extended town cars, white of course. A tad bit sketched out, my friend and I decline this girls invitation to "get in" the "limo" and "do" shots, fearing some sort of trap. Who does shots in a limo that isn't moving anyways? No one. She can't find the liquor anyways (definitely a trap) so we go back inside. It is at this point that I realize that she has been talking about this guy named Ed a lot, how great he is, how he really helps her out with her life, provides her liquor (imaginary or not), etc. I didn't think too much of it at the time. I should've thought more of it at the time. Inside, she pulls out some white wine and pours herself a glass, at which point the man we met earlier, with other girl still in tow, appear on the front porch. I realize that this other girl is wearing a trench coat, and like me, is not wearing anything on her feet. By the way, when I say 'realize', I mean barely remember the next day. We all go outside again, and this man starts pissing off the porch. I decide this man must be Ed. The trenchcoat clad girl begins to flash this man as he's pissing. She starts to slowly writhe and dance before him. I am now sure this is Ed. At this point, my friend and I are too confused to do anything but mouth words to eachother: "What the fuck is going on", "Should we leave?", and "Oh my word, these women are prostitutes" were all popular choices. We didn't leave however, and the original girl we came with pulled out some sort of illegal drug. Not being too familiar with that whole "culture", I couldn't be sure what it was. However, not being too familiar with my own sense of mortality at that point, I couldn't be sure that I wouldn't accept it. I in fact did, as did my friend. Ed had retired to his upstairs quarters at this point, and was either brutally breaking the trenchcoated girl into small pieces, or banging her Old Testament style. Probably both. We partake of the mysterious substance offered to us, feeling confident it came out of the ground and was thus relatively harmless. We however failed to realize that people often combine illicit substances to increase their potency. I'm pretty sure we floated home at that point. I'll leave it at that.

I left out the part of the story where the girl that brought us to Ed's was shamelessly flirting with both me and my friend. Both of us are idiots for not hooking up with a prostitute. Especially me, because my friend has a girlfriend. And I already have pretty much every STD known to man.

One last thing on that topic: Trojan makes a new condom called Ecstasy that supposedly feels like there's no piece of latex on your peen. I think it would be funny if the condoms were just cut into hollow tubes and Trojan moved all of their stock options into baby clothing companies.

I should be in marketing.